Strip Out the Damn Spaces

When you’re asking your user to enter a lengthy seeries of numers — like a 16-character account number, or a credit card number — why not allow spaces? You know that the user is reading these long series of numbers with spaces to make it easier to read; and it makes sense for that user to type in the spaces, making it easier to proofread. So why not just strip out the fucking spaces when the user clicks ‘submit’? It’s only one line of code, for God’s sake!

And you, Lowe’s: you ask me to leave a compliment on the countertop installation, and require I leave a phone number. Will you accept something like this (with real numbers): 000-111-9999? NO! You cut it off like this: 000-111-99 and rudely tell me I need a valid phone number. In other words, you can’t handle a hyphen. IDIOTS!